1990osu said:
Look, it's quite simple:
The north had slave states. There were riots in New York where northerners killed black people. The only reason the north didn't have as big a slave industry was because of the weather. The northerners would have rebelled if they thought that they were all dying to free the slaves. No, they were fighting to "preserve the union". And likewise, southerners were not fighting to keep their slaves. As mentioned, the vast majority of them did not own slaves.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a great publicity stunt by Lincoln to try to make the war about slavery. Why? Because he didn't want Europe to jump in on the southern side, which it was about to do.
But what did the Emancipation Proclamation actually do? Nothing! If Lincoln had really wanted to free slaves why didn't he free the Northern slaves? Why "free" the southern ones he had no control over?
It was a great publicity stunt by Lincoln, and ever after it has made a good simplistic "white knight black knight" tale for the history books and public schools- but it just isn't correct.
The war was not about slavery, but about economics...as most wars are.
As a history buff and someone who just last month did a ton of research on the Civil War, I have to put a stop to the misinformation going on here.
The north didn't have as big a slave industry because they had industry that was built upon the industrial revolution: far easier to mass produce with machines than people in any situation. Ergo less need for slavery.
The south had no such infrastructure, as their industry was still, by far and away, agricultural (plantations, slaves, et cetera) and they were having their economy threatened by the fact that slavery was a fast-dying institution due to industrialization, and the trend towards an anti-slavery mindset that was very rapidly growing in the north (and had already been accepted by Europe, further influencing American attitudes, especially considering America was built upon a supposedly-enlightened constitution in which all men are created equal [the issue of slavery up until machines were invented that did the work faster and without rest was conveniently and I would say uncomfortably ignored]); in fact, with the majority of the reasons the south went to war, if you follow them back far enough they lead to the issue of slavery. The south was fighting, in big part, to retain their "institution", that being slavery, plain and simple.
I don't know where you're getting your "facts" about Europe being about to support the CSA, but they are utterly false:
England wanted to remain staunchly neutral as it was also facing plenty of tension in Europe with Napoleon III being around, and not to mention the idea that supporting a rebellion like the CSA could give English holdings ideas about separation. The US was also doing a fine job of not legitimizing the rebellion.
It was also not because of the CSA's cotton production, either, as England was already getting plenty of cotton from Egypt and India at the time, however, England was receiving a large amount of far more vital food shipments from the Union states.
The only time England came close to intervening in the war was during Lee's push north, and then it was not to support the CSA, but to mediate an end to the war (though likely by giving the CSA what it wanted in order to end the war, it was by no means going to support their war effort, and certainly not because they supported the movement), and by the time they were discussing offering to mediate, the Union had defeated the CSA's armies at Antietam (which took place before the Emancipation Proclamation) and forced them back into the south, and at this point, the war was basically over for the CSA, as they just didn't have the manpower anymore to deal with such costly battles.
At the same time, France was officially neutral as well; though they were in the market for southern cotton, there was a lot of internal governmental disagreement about which side to support, and the fact that England was watching them made them no quicker to decide. Again, after Antietam (again, before the Emancipation Proclamation), any question about supporting the CSA was quashed.
I agree that the war was primarily fought by the Union in order to preserve that union, and that the Emancipation Proclamation was not only about freeing the slaves for the sake of freeing the slaves (turning the war into a moral war not only opened up black men for recruiting, but also revived shaky morale and support for the war, and did, indeed, keep outside powers from supporting the CSA, though this was hardly a reality anyway [if you want to know why Lincoln freed only the southern slaves, it was to further illegitimize the southern rebellion as well as to utterly and completely destroy their economy, he didn't have to free them in the north because slavery was already gone or on its way out]) but anybody downplaying slavery as a primary cause is just outright revisionism, and I will not stand for it.
xhonzi said:
39 replies and no:
"You're beginning to sound like a Separatist!"?
I am disappoint.
Now you're starting to sound like a Separatist.
